“There is a common popular perception that the countries which started the transition earlier were the ones that recovered earliest, and the others followed with a lag, according to their start time. This is not a correct interpretation. The “Visegrad Four” did indeed see recovery first, within 3-4 years, but the time lag between transition start and recovery was very different elsewhere. In the Baltic countries it was even shorter (2-3) years, in the CIS countries it was much longer (6-10 years). In South East Europe and the successor states of Yugoslavia it varied a great deal from one year to as much as 5-7 years (...)” – write Oleh Havrylyshyn (IMF) and Lucio Vinhas de Souza (DG-ECFIN), the editors of the book ”Growth Resumption in the CIS Countries.” Lucio Vinhas de Souza has been cooperating with the CASE in numerous research projects. Two CASE affiliates, Inna Golodniuk (CASE Ukraine) and Igor Pelipas (IPM-CASE Research Centre) also contributed to this book. Golodniuk authored chapter 6, on ”Evidence on the Bank Lending Channel in Ukraine”, Pelipas wrote chapter 8, entitled ”Modeling the Demand for Money and Inflation in Belarus.”

”This book focuses on the link between sustained economic growth and macroeconomic policies in the CIS countries where recovery lagged considerably, and points to two key conclusions. First, in most of these countries, regardless of the degree of advancement on structural and institutional reforms, the will to conduct effective, prudent and market-friendly policies has increased markedly, as has the ability to implement them. Second, this development has been, as in other transition countries to the west of the CIS, the single most important catalyst for growth recovery.” – argue Havrylyshyn and de Souza.
The book is planned to be published by June 19, 2006 by Elsevier, the Netherlands.